


The Scent of Magic

by groaar



Series: Dysfunctional [4]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-04
Updated: 2014-09-04
Packaged: 2018-02-16 04:09:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2255370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/groaar/pseuds/groaar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whenever Fenris drinks his sense of smell grows very sensitive, and this is precisely why he prefers to enjoy his wine alone in his own mansion. However, from time to time he goes out for a drink with friends. Sometimes these evenings end in the worst way possible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Scent of Magic

The air was thick and muggy, reeking of sweat, food and vomit – a combination that made for quite a horrid stench, one which the elf tried to escape by breathing solely through his mouth. Funny, how the smell seemed to affect him all the easier the more intoxicated he got. One would assume that alcohol would help blunt all senses, but of course this could not be so in Fenris’ case, such luck was never reserved for people like him.

He sat at a corner table with Aveline, Varric and Isabela, all good individuals, persons he should be able to relax among. Tonight, though, he couldn’t. He was too tired and his bones were prickling with weariness. For more nights in a row than he cared to remember he had been stalked by wicked dreams; dreams that had led to such a distinct lack of sleep that it was starting to affect even his waking hours.

The elf lifted his mug and let another mouthful of his now tepid beer trickle down his throat.

He could vaguely make out Isabela chattering from across the table, but her voice was lost amongst all others. Drunken laughter, slurring and shouting. It felt as if he heard everything at once, and yet he heard nothing at all. He found it very uncomfortable, very confining.

To dispel the uneasiness that was slowly building within, balling into a thick and solid lump of discomfort in Fenris’ gut, the elf let his gaze sweep over the dimly lit tavern. Sometimes he’d pause to absentmindedly study a face, trying to pinpoint why that person had come to the Hanged Man tonight, if it was to enjoy the atmosphere or simply to get so drunk that little else than their own intoxication mattered. It was not a very entertaining game, but it eased his mind nonetheless. It provided at least some distraction.

He was shook out of though as a woman bumped into him. She grabbed Fenris’ shoulder for support and he had to fight the urge to swat her hand away the second it made contact. He didn’t wish to cause a scene over such a matter, so he settled with glaring angrily up at her.

The woman looked to be in her mid-twenties. Her rounded face, framed beautifully by a curtain of long, blonde hair, was slightly flushed and her eyes, as blue as blinding sapphires, shone like beacons in the murky pub. She was, Fenris supposed, what people would call pretty. She smelled, however, emitting nasty odours that reminded him of sewers and rotting fish, and as she spoke the elf couldn’t help but wrinkling his nose in disgust before swiftly turning to face away from her.

While the warrior felt nauseous to the point where he had to fight to keep the beer from travelling up the narrow path and back into his mouth – already he could feel the familiar acidic burn of bile – the other members at the table seemed to notice nothing. Isabela even seemed remotely interested, patting the vacant seat next to her, inviting the young woman to join their table.

Fenris couldn’t take it, couldn’t sit there. It was too intense, too overpowering.

He quietly excused himself, not that he thought his companions would miss him much, quiet as he had been this evening. Varric and Aveline both acknowledge his departure, nodding at him in silence, Isabela, however, was far too distracted by her current conversation to spare him even a glance. It mattered little.

Silently he rose from the table, leaving his half-finished drink behind. With a slight wobble to his steps the elf sauntered towards the door that would lead him outdoors. A door that held a promise, even if only a small one, of fresher air. 

Well outside he found little of the relief he had hoped. The air was perhaps a tad clearer, but not enough to ease the elf out of his discomfort. He did not wish to return to his Hightown mansion, not in this condition and with such a troubled mind, so he sat off, wandering aimlessly along the dirt roads of Lowtown. Roads that reeked of blood and deception.

As he rounded yet another street corner Fenris thought he could hear voices; aggravated shouting. Also, if he strained his ears, he could pick up the distinct sound of clashing metal. There was no mistaking it – these were noises anyone in Kirkwall would know – these were sounds of battle.

Curiosity drove the elf closer to the core of the scuffle. He was not far from the alienage and it was not unthinkable that a lone elf had been attacked. It was not unheard of, and Fenris knew that if this was the case no one would bother to come to the rescue. What was one lowly elf after all? He was not sure if he would bother either, but for Hawke’s sake he would take a look, in case the victim would be Merrill.  

He stopped at a safe distance; a place from where he could observe enough to satisfy his peaked interest, but needn’t get involved if he didn’t want to.

He should have known better than to look.

He let his green eyes wander when he should instead have walked away, but it was too late to unsee what he had already laid sight upon.

The elf found himself frozen to the ground, as immobile as if he had been struck by an ice conjuring spell. In like manner his breath felt caught in his lungs.

The one fighting, the one clearly outnumbered, was not Merrill but another familiar mage. A mage he most certainly did not wish to see, and yet Fenris stayed to watch.

The abomination was a fierce fighter, the elf would give him as much, and he could obviously hold his own very well. He cast spell after spell, not wavering for the slightest moment, not even when faced with heavily armed enemies who clearly surpassed him in number and strength. But, no matter the situation, one man can only do so much, and because the mage was so engaged with the warriors he failed to notice the deadly shadow that approached noiselessly from behind. Fenris, however, saw it and before he even had made a conscious decision to join the fight he had already fallen into a sprint, drawing his sword while he ran towards the heat of the battle.

Neither mage nor assassin saw him come, and perhaps that was just as well. With a few agile leaps he was at the mage’s side, ruthlessly knocking him out of the way just in time to parry the dagger that, had it reached its target, would have planted itself right in-between the healer’s shoulder blades.

The cold sound as steel met steel rushed through his ears, urging him to let his instincts guide him in this battle. He pushed down hard and quick on the dagger with his sword, causing the assassin to momentarily lose balance. Seeing the opening Fenris decided to chance a strike even though the positioning of his feet was not ideal for such an onslaught.

Under normal circumstances the sword should have missed its target, but the element of surprise as well as the assassin’s young age both worker in the warrior’s favour. Fenris got lucky. The attacker had lacked the skill and speed to drop his hands low enough in time to stop his blade and the tip of his sword had cut partway through the assassin’s thigh. The man, a boy so young Fenris doubted he had even had the chance to complete his training as a rouge, stumbled backwards, wincing in pain. His eyes, filled with fear and pleading, desperately sought contact with Fenris’ green ones, wordlessly begging for mercy, for the elf to show some humanity. But this was a battle, a fight for life and death, and Fenris was but a weapon. Life had made him thus, and it was all he would ever be.

He charged at the young rouge, taking advantage of his target’s fear and hesitation, and hit him with the pommel of his sword. A hard shove was all it took and the assassin was down, seconds later a broad, metallic blade was buried deep within his chest.

At once the smell invaded him. A mixture of blood and dirt, a rank so intense the elf could almost taste it on his tongue, but he did not flinch. He had killed before. He had ended lives of innocents. This boy was but one among many others, a face soon to be forgotten.

Running footsteps on sandy ground was what brought him back to the battle. As he looked up he could see a figure closing in, a female rouge. The moonlight illuminated the tears in her eyes and those rolling down her cheek. She was running in blind rage and sorrow, her daggers posed for an attack, and Fenris knew already then that he had won. Emotions did not belong on a battlefield.

She spurted towards him, fearlessly. Perhaps she thought him unarmed, now that his sword had pierced her comrade and was stuck in his limp, cold body. Had she known his true nature she would most likely have been more careful, but how could she have known? It was highly unlikely that she had ever met a man like Fenris, a living weapon, before.

She had not even had time to execute her attack. The elf had been quicker, mercilessly burying his fist in her, crushing her heart.

The woman slumped down against him, blood pooling out of the wound in her chest and colouring his arm and the ground on which they stood red. Her arms grew limp, and as life left her body her fingers uncurled and her daggers fell to the ground. An empty sound that echoed through the deserted streets of night-time Kirkwall. The warrior lowered his arm and let the body slide off it, down onto the ground.

The elf looked down on the girl, hardly any older than the boy whose life he also just had ended, and as he inhaled he caught a whiff of perfume, a flowery fragrance than lingered for only a moment before it was smothered by the ever intensifying smell of fresh, warm blood.

The aftertaste of this battle was rather bitter, and as the adrenaline slowly dissolved it was instead replaced by nausea. All he could smell was blood and death and it filled every fibre of his being. Much like the faint scent of flowers had lost out to the wave of blood, so had these young lives come to a premature end by his hand.

He looked for the mage and found him looming over one of the other men who had fallen in battle, the leader of the bunch by the looks of his armour. It seemed as if the blond was searching him for something but Fenris chose not to ask, it was none of his concern, so he preoccupied himself with retrieving his own blade instead.

By the time he had coaxed the sword out of the lifeless body the mage stood beside him, silently observing the two dead youngsters. Fenris did not even need to look over to know that his eyes were filled with disdain.

“You didn’t have to kill them” the mage snapped as he kneeled down in order to close the eyelids of the dead boy “they were so young”.

The elf grimaced at the reprimand. Had he not killed them they would surely have perish at the hands of his own later, and he failed to see how it mattered who committed the crime. At least he had been swift about it.

“Would you rather I had let them impale you?” he snarled, angry that the mage was so ungrateful. Then again, he had been no better. He did well and truly owe the abomination his life, no matter how it tore at his pride to admit it. He could never speak the words of gratitude, and if the mage would neither he would settle with knowing that they now were even.

The apostate had chosen to ignore the elf’s comment rather than to engage in an argument, and in a way Fenris was grateful for that. Being around the mage alone made him feel agitated and slightly nervous, especially as he could not even keep his eyes from pursuing that too thin human figure as the healer moved soundlessly over the sand, kneeling down by the dead girl.

The elf even felt compelled to walk over to him.

The mage was without a doubt a wretched abomination, but he smelled wonderful. How Fenris had not noticed before was beyond him, but the apostate was definitely wrapped in a cloud of pleasant aromas. The soothing smell of elfroot lingered all around him, spiced with a breath of fresh pine and a note of what the elf thought could be spindleweed. Adding to this there was also something else, something faint and hard to describe, but Fenris still knew what it was, he knew it from before, the tang of magic. A smell that speaks of thrills and seduction, one that holds a lot of promise; promise which Fenris knew to be treacherous to its nature. Yet he could not help but being pulled in.

When the mage stood and started towards Fenris it grew even harder for him to resist temptation.

His heart was drumming hard in his chest, muting all sounds around them. His throat felt thick, clogged with words he could not speak. When the mage stood this close all the elf could think of was his scent. The way it overran his mind and how aroused it made him feel. If one could be drunk on an essence, this would surely be how it felt. He was breathing the mage and it went to his head at alarming speed. He felt wholly intoxicated and he knew his that he was slowly letting all sense of control slip through his fingers. This was dangerous.

The blond crossed his arms and cocked his head to the side, a smirk playing on his lips.

“And what is your problem?” he asked, and the mere sound of his voice sent shivers running amok, up and down Fenris’ spine.  

Swallowing words that risked breaking through his defences the elf shook his head, his silver hair dancing in the moonlight.

“Never mind, we’re even now” he finally croaked out after clearing his throat a few times.

The healer was not satisfied.

“You’re hurt” he noted, grabbing and turning Fenris’ right arm so that the elf could see the open wound. One of the rouges must have managed to land a hit to his upper arm at some point, but he couldn’t really recall it happening, and to be honest it was the last thing on his mind right now as well.

The mage’s sudden touch had sent a jolt up his arm, and the heat radiating from his palm, where it touched Fenris’ skin, was excruciating. It spread and grew, and sent an unnatural tingle swirling through his lyrium until it had reached every inch of his body. It was threatening his resolve, making his mind waver. The heat was coiling; building up fast and in all the wrong places.

Fenris felt strained, both physically and mentally. The blond hounded his sleep, unintentionally perhaps, but, it still made him exhausted, and to put up with the man during his waking hours as well was quickly proving too much to handle for the elf, at least in his current state.

Filthy thoughts. A forbidden longing. The warm touch.

It was too much. Too much.

The balled up nest of heat had now settled in the pit of his stomach and now it was just a question of time. He knew what was bound to happen, and he could not let it. Not here; not in front of the apostate.

He had to get away.

“I can’t…” he tried, but his language failed him. There was no way to describe the need – all that he felt – to the mage so he did what he would always do when pressed and cornered; he fled.

Like a coward he ran.

He tried to think of anything and everything and all at once, but to no avail.

All he could smell was the mage.

All he could feel was that uncomfortable tightness.

All he could hear was a whispering voice in his head, telling him how easy it would be to end this and how good it would feel to give in. No one was forcing him to hold back but himself.

Fenris stumbled in through the main entrance of his mansion. His legs were shaking, barely strong enough to support his weight and the feeling in his abdomen was so intense it was hard for him to inhale. The pressure behind his constricting tights was unbearable – throbbing, begging, pleading – and he had to bite his hand in order to stop himself from touching that particular area which so craved a loving stroke.

He would not cave in.

He pressed on, heading for the washing room where he knew he would find a stone tub filled with water. Fenris had not bothered to empty it since he last bathed, and the water was now several days old and most likely dirty, but it was also bound to be ice-cold. If anything an ice bath was bound to sooth the fire within him. It was his last and only hope.

The walk to the bathroom was dreadful though. It truly felt as if he was on fire, burning up from within. Every step he took threatened to bring him over the edge and he had to stop every so often to lean against a wall or a doorframe in order to catch his breath, regain control and to stop his vision from dimming with pleasure. And all the time the voice was screaming in his head, tempting him, taunting him. But he fought it, and reached his goal.

Still, however hard the elf had thought reaching the bathing area had been, this trip quickly paled in comparison to the struggles he faced when undressing.

While he unclasped his armour his mind slipped, and for just a split-second did his focus shift to the complicated clasps that held the protective metal in place. This momentary lapse of control was all it took for the pleasure to multiply, bringing Fenris down to his knees and sending his breastplate clattering across the floor.

The sensation of being so close to release was more painful than pleasurable, and it felt as if he was about to erupt or be torn open. He couldn’t take it. And all the time the voice was calling to him, beckoning him to ease the pain. It told him to surrender to the pleasure, that this was what Fenris wanted, and that it was within his power to take it.

Fenris inhaled deeply, his lungs filling with air that bore the scent of medicinal herbs, magic and sex.

And it was so easy to imagine that it was someone else’s hands around him. That it was those hands that pulled down his tights in order to caress him and eased the pain. That it was pale hands, hands stained with the flavours of elfroot, moving rhythmically across his sensitive skin.

When he finally let go it was so easy, almost frighteningly so, to immerse himself in this fantasy.

When he came it was with a hoarse cry, a choked down sob, and the burning sting of tears; tears of shame, regret and disappointment.

He had relished for a short moment, voluntarily chosen to indulge in momentary bliss, and now, when he had spent himself, all that was left was a gaping emptiness. Fenris wanted to deny it ever happened, wished to repress the fact that he had given in, but the evidence was all over the floor, his leggings and his hands.

His hands, and not someone else’s.

Still half-dressed Fenris started crawling towards the bathtub, flinching visibly when his hand accidentally made contact with a small pool of cooling semen that was sullying the icy stone floor of his washing room.  

It reeked, the whole room reeked.  

He heaved himself into the cold water, soaking up to his shoulders. Never mind he was not fully undressed, never mind he didn’t need the icy water any longer.

He was a failure; a disgrace.

He had held out for so long, suppressed his desires for weeks, for months, but for what? In the end he had been unable to restrain himself, unable to stop himself.

He was weak.

He had given in.

He had given in to a mage.

So many memories, so many awful memories swam around in his head.

Refusing to fade.

Fenris did not leave his tub for hours, but remained in the water till he was nearly frozen, so cold he could only move with the greatest effort.

He sat there till he shook so violently that he forgot everything else.

That night he did not dream of the mage but of someone else entirely.  

**Author's Note:**

> I have absolutely no time to write, and yet I produce nonsense stories like this one. This was supposed to turn out different, but I think my bad mood has influenced it. 
> 
> I hope the story makes at least some sense. I was rather tired when writing it, and even more so when reading it through, so I might end up doing some corrections later on. When I have time.


End file.
